


Homesick

by Relvetica



Series: Wolves [2]
Category: Fargo (2014)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-01
Updated: 2014-09-01
Packaged: 2018-02-15 16:13:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2235300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Relvetica/pseuds/Relvetica
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If Wrench had known when he'd been recruited into the syndicate's pool of heavies that one of his responsibilities was going to be teaching ASL as a second language, he probably would have turned the offer down and left the suspiciously high pay safely ignored.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Homesick

If Wrench had known when he'd been recruited into the syndicate's pool of heavies that one of his responsibilities was going to be teaching ASL as a second language, he probably would have turned the offer down and left the suspiciously high pay safely ignored. He hadn't even used sign language regularly since high school, and that was more than five years ago. He should have just pointed his partner to a community college course.

He didn't. Of course he didn't. While he didn't understand Numbers' sudden determination, he had never known a hearing person express a desire to learn, and he gave in to his own curiosity. Most hearing people seemed to barely believe signing was a language at all. Anyway, Numbers ignored Wrench's hesitation and peppered him with vocabulary questions whenever they were alone, so his choices on the matter were limited. It was more than a little bizarre; the first time Wrench had ever seen him on the job, a few months before they'd been made partners and only two weeks in the business himself, Numbers had slammed a knife nearly hilt-deep through a man's hand to pin him to a card table. Out of nowhere, as far as Wrench could tell, but they had been in profile to him and he couldn't follow the argument. A bad debt, he had to assume. There was no reason to think Numbers was any different from the rest of the teeth-flashing monsters Wrench was always assigned to cover from the door. Most of the syndicate was an incomprehensible wall of identically vicious men. But it was a wall with a door, it turned out.

That swift arc of Numbers' arm was nowhere to be seen at their table in the diner, the setting for most of their limping conversations. Numbers' fingerspelling was slow and clumsy, and he constantly misspelled things because he confused the letters, but he was trying. He was really trying. Wrench was surprised by his own patience. Maybe neither of them were quite what he'd assumed.

They sat with cups of coffee at their elbows and a legal pad with clarifications scrawled at strange angles between them, and Wrench watched Numbers as he raised his hands and thought for a long moment. Finally he said, if I want to say--

He reached for the pen, but Wrench took it away before he could pick it up. First, Wrench said. Ask with your face.

Numbers frowned.

Ask with your face, Wrench repeated. He tapped a pinkie against his cheekbone -- "if" -- and frowned quizzically.

Numbers made a face like he was chewing the inside of his lip, but he cleared it and repeated himself, imitating Wrench's expression. What if I want to say.

Wrench nodded and handed the pen back.

Numbers turned the paper toward himself and the pen hovered over it for a moment. Then he put it down again. I forget, he said, smiling sheepishly, and Wrench smiled back. Most of all, he was surprised by how good it felt to talk again.

All questions, Numbers said. Face? 

Wrench nodded. He pointed to his eyebrows.

Numbers looked troubled by that, and he picked up the pen again. "If there are signs for question words, why do you have to make a face?"

Wrench considered for a moment. He signed "speaking," then "ask." He raised an eyebrow and Numbers nodded. Wrench pointed to his throat and signed "ask" again, and then pointed an inch or so higher on his neck.

Numbers looked thoughtful as he put that together, and Wrench waited. He could write it out if he needed to, but--

Numbers' mouth made an 'oh' shape and he nodded. Same! he said. I understand. Wrench smiled with a twinge of pride. 

There were jokes about hearing people signing without ever changing their expressions, and Wrench had always found the exaggerated imitations of that stereotype creepy. The sooner Numbers understood, the better. If he really did want to learn.

\---

Wrench drove by the post office after lunch. Any mail that came addressed to his real name had to go to a PO box. That was a rule he'd made up himself, since he'd already had a PO box to obscure his home address, but his new job let him feel considerably less guilty about it. The intended purpose originally was to let his parents know he wasn't dead; he'd scrawled the box number on a postcard and dropped it in a public mailbox, and he'd hoped that was that. They could know he was in North Dakota. There was no way they'd make that drive to look for him without a real address, but as long as any responses weren't returned to sender, they wouldn't put his face on milk cartons.

They hadn't come, of course, but he had not anticipated the flood of letters that followed. Envelopes bearing his mother's handwriting, his father's, even a few scattered ones from his brothers. He never opened any of them, but he couldn't let them cram the box full, so he collected them all the same. He had a drawer full of them in his apartment.

When he unlocked the box today, there was a single envelope in it, but it wasn't from his mother's yellow stationery set or the legal-sized envelopes his dad always used for some reason. It was thick and cream-colored; the address was written out in calligraphy. Wrench felt his stomach drop.

He locked the box and took the letter back to the car. He sat there in the parking lot for a long time, looking at his name rendered ridiculously in looping ink. He knew he shouldn't open it. He knew he should drop it in the drawer with all the others.

He sighed deeply and used the ignition key as a letter opener.

There was a small map of College Station enclosed, an empty stamped envelope self-addressed to Burnet, and a crisp unfolded letter full of more calligraphy. _Mr. and Mrs. John William Sherman request the honor of your presence at the marriage of their daughter Emily Anne to Andrew Randall--_

Wrench folded the note in half abruptly, feeling the thick paper resist. The car suddenly felt stuffy. 

Emily? Had her name been Emily? Or was this someone new? He had never quite caught any of the names of the girls that paraded through his brothers' lives. Women's names were always so full of vowels, uniformly soft and open on their mouths.

He'd liked the girl Andy was dating when the family had gone to visit him at the university. He didn't have a clear impression of what she'd been like as company, being unable to make out much of what she'd said to him, but she'd seemed like a tough cadet and her body language said she could stand up to his brother, a vital quality. His mother hadn't liked her, but his father had. She hadn't seemed like an Emily.

He was right; he shouldn't have opened it. He shoved everything back into the envelope and pushed it deep into his jacket's pocket. With any luck he'd forget about it, and it would dissolve in the wash.

\---

"You okay?" Numbers asked when Wrench hauled himself back to headquarters. Numbers was still self-conscious signing in front of people who weren't Wrench or diner patrons. Wrench nodded.

"All right," Numbers said. "But you don't look okay." Wrench raised an eyebrow, and Numbers said, "I don't know. Maybe--" Wrench didn't catch the last word, but he didn't want to ask him to repeat it. He brought a hand to his chest for a quick _I'm fine_ and went to get a cup of coffee from the break room.

When he came back, Numbers was talking to one of the boss's secretaries. He was holding a bundle of kraft envelopes rubberbanded together; when he saw Wrench, he said, "Rochester." Or something that looked like "Rochester."

Wrench squinted at him. When no further information seemed to be forthcoming, he transferred his coffee from his right hand to his left and asked, N-Y?

"Jesus Christ, no. Minnesota. Drink that faster, you need it."

The secretary watched that exchange with surprised interest until Numbers glared at him and he slipped off. Wrench, phrasing himself simply, said, where, I don't know.

Numbers shrugged. "South of Minneapolis. We sent a couple of trucks through there--" Wrench caught "arrived" and "lighter;" the weigh-in on the shipments were off. "It's all in the paper trail," Numbers concluded, holding up the envelopes.

Wrench nodded. He pointed to his left wrist with his eyebrows raised.

"Not today. Friday. Early." He glanced over his shoulder and signed, Friday, six, morning, your car, okay?

Wrench sipped his coffee. Okay.

Your G-L-O-C-K.

Wrench sighed. He couldn't remember if he had any .45s left.

\---

He didn't, and Numbers only had his emergency magazine, and his sharing that wouldn't have been any help even if he'd been willing to. Wrench drove downtown to see their guy about it and brought Numbers along; Wrench ended up having to park half a mile away from the shop. Why G-L-O-C-K? Wrench asked as they got out of the car. P-L-A-S-T-I-C.

P-O-L-Y-M-E-R, Numbers said.

Same!

"What do you want, an Anaconda? Do you know what a bitch revolvers are to reload in the middle of a fight?" Numbers snapped it out fast enough that Wrench only caught it through force of will.

Wrench snorted. Anyone so fantastic to miss their target six times in a row must be talented enough to reload just as well!

Numbers blinked hard as that flew past, but he took the hint. They fell into step with each other on the sidewalk and didn't converse for a few minutes. Wrench didn't even want to come in firing Magnums over some cargo theft; he just didn't like Glocks. His dad had always sworn by Remingtons. Wood grips and steel barrels.

He never should have sent them an address, any address. He had never intended to stay in touch; he'd wanted them to see he was beyond their reach now. If he'd stayed, they would have figured him out eventually. Maybe they had anyway, in his absence.

He realized that Numbers was watching him sidelong, and he swallowed and cleared his expression. Too late, though. Numbers grasped his shoulder and they both stopped. 

What's wrong? Numbers asked. Your face is-- he made angry shaking fists in front of his eyes, which was, at least, creative.

Nothing, Wrench said.

Not nothing, Numbers said.

Wrench took a deep breath. It was warm today. He'd go jogging tonight; it would make him feel better. I don't know, he said. I can't explain. E-X-P-L-A-I-N, he added.

Numbers laughed. My signing is bad, you can't explain. Sorry.

It was strange: it really was a warm day, and it would have been considered arctic back home. He didn't belong here, and he hadn't belonged there. And here was this stranger who looked more out of place than Wrench did, learning sign language for no better reason than to occasionally ask him if he was okay.

Wrench thought for a long time while Numbers waited. Finally, he slowly said, L-I-F-E doesn't stop.

Numbers frowned at him. He was also very striking, something Wrench tried and largely failed not to think about. You want to stop? he asked.

No, Wrench said. I want… some things to stay the same. I want some things not to change without me.

Numbers cocked his head a little. Home-- H-O-M-E-S-I-C-K?

Wrench stared at him; then he sighed. Your signing isn't bad, he said. I can't explain. P-R-I-V-A-T-E.

Numbers' expression cleared and he nodded. Sorry, he said. He paused, and he added, Maybe not stopping is good.

Maybe, Wrench said.

What is L-I-F-E? Numbers asked. The sign.

Wrench stroked his chest in an upward motion with his hands forming Ls.

P-R-I-V-A-T-E?

Wrench sighed. He made a fist and brushed its thumb down his lips.

Numbers hesitated before he asked, H-O-M-E-S-I-C-K?

...I don't know a sign for that, Wrench said. I think you say... you miss your home.

Numbers nodded and clapped Wrench's shoulder, and they kept walking.

\---

He didn't deserve it. Andy, out of all the bullying sociopath idiots in the world, with his porn magazines and his fingerspelled slurs (the most sign language he had ever bothered with), didn't deserve it. But maybe Emily did, whoever she was.

Wrench went to the office's head accountant. He laid a note in front of him: "I need a cashier's check."

"For how much?" the man said, barely glancing away from a printing calculator to read it.

Wrench pulled out the ten thousand dollars he'd removed from his safe. The man nodded. "Come back in an hour."

He had to fold the check over to make it fit in the little RSVP envelope, and he wrapped another piece of paper around it. He picked a pen to write something, anything to go with it, some kind of explanation. A word of affection. But he couldn't think of anything. Not a single thing.

"Good luck," he finally wrote. He tucked it into the envelope unsigned.

It was the first time he'd ever written any of them back. As far as he was concerned, it would be the last. It wasn't forgiveness, either offered or asked for.

\---

Wrench tapped the horn outside Numbers' building; he didn't know how loud it was, but if he left the car he'd be illegally parked. Fortunately Numbers emerged a few minutes later.

Four or five hours, Wrench said once Numbers was buckled in. Have everything you need?

Numbers made a face at that. Need a drink, he said. He laughed at Wrench's alarmed glance at the dashboard's clock and said, joke, joke.

Wrench started the car and glanced over his shoulder. The street wasn't clear yet. You're a joke, he said.

Yes, Numbers said, settling back into the seat. I'm a joke.

Wrench shook his head and glanced back again; the light had changed and the road was empty. He pulled out into the street, and they headed for I-94.


End file.
